Exploring and Experiencing

Utah

While visiting Capitol Reef National Park this year, we decided to start our hikes with the Capitol Gorge Trail. It is listed in the park materials as an easy one-mile trail. Somehow, we managed to do four miles, and scampered all over the universe. We should have relied on the Live and Let Hike trail guide for a better description, but forgot to look at it before heading out.

This trail has wonderful views, is very level (without the optional side trips), and we marveled at the historic signatures. How did they reach up that far? We looked it up, but I’m not going to spoil the secret! We managed not to find the petroglyphs, but still enjoyed the main trail.

An available side trail is climbing around on the The Tanks. I believe the little sign is on your left as you hike the main trail. This is a cairn trail – the way is marked by small piles of rocks.

And sometimes a helpful lizard. Cairn trails always make me feel like I’m exploring where few people have gone before. Please never knock over a trail marker, but feel free to repair them or add a rock.

The main attraction of this side trail is a series of small pools. There was not a lot of water for our hike, but we hear that they are sometimes larger. We did get to see “tadpoles” which are actually shrimp.

Bring your sunscreen for this one. There are areas of shade for resting, but the entire hike was exposed during the middle of the day. We were confused about where to stop (since it was advertised as a one mile trail). Surely, we’ve gone a mile already! We stopped when we were hot and tired and headed back. On the return trip, we accidentally frightened off this nesting swallow while shade-seeking.

I felt terrible! She returned fairly quickly and allowed me to get this shot from across the trail.

Our all-around favorite park on our recent Utah trip was Capitol Reef National Park. See our itinerary here. The landscapes were amazing, and the trails were not crowded in mid-May.

Disclaimer #1 – Do your research about the rainy season. I would not want to be on these trails in the rain, and flash floods are a concern in many areas.

Disclaimer #2 – If you prefer structure and the company of your fellow man to a little gentle isolation, then Zion and Bryce are your parks. And they are gorgeous parks. That said, the trails in Capitol Reef are clearly marked, there enough fellow hikers to help keep the mountain lions away (yep, I said mountain lions), and there are very convenient rest areas.

We parked and walked down to a boardwalk view of petroglyphs. This was my first view of drawings done by ancient peoples, and these were designed between 600 and 1300 C.E. Apparently, things have changed since my school days, and we are using C.E instead of A.D. now (had to look that one up).

We saw strange human figures, lots of bighorn sheep, and we saw dogs and horses at other sites. Going in search of a snack, we visited the Gifford House for a huge cinnamon roll and old-fashioned bottles of soda. For safety and convenience, we also traveled with six gallons of (cheap Wal-Mart) spring water and trail mix. I always make our own trail mix so that I don’t have to remove all those pesky raisins. I hate raisins.

Mini marshmallows are much better. We love our Nalgene bottles, but Zion had these great reusable bottles for the filling stations at the national parks.

Our two main hikes at Capitol Reef were the Capitol Gorge/Tanks trail and the Grand Wash trail. I’ll link over to them as soon as they are posted. Happy travels!

We had a hard time deciding how to divide our time in Southern Utah. You could easily spend a week in every park and go home happy. We tried the usual research methods – park websites, maps (Jon loves maps), and a few books on the area. I came across this video advertisement about Highway 12. Utah tourism claimed to have the most beautiful highway in America. We focused our travel plan around Highway 12, and I’m so glad we did.

Since we enjoy hiking (and try to avoid the more crowded areas), our best information came from a local blogger at Live and Let Hike. He writes amazing and detailed trail guides for southern Utah, and I will link up with his pages as we explore each park. Another great resource is Rick Stinchfield’s book, Capitol Reef National Park: The Complete Hiking and Touring Guide. Of course, we found this literary gem while eating lunch on one of our last days, but it did help narrow down our last-minute choices.

On some of our previous trips, research was necessary to make sure that we saw something worthwhile. For this destination, you need to do some research to prevent getting overwhelmed with choices. Once you see this landscape, you’ll want to do everything! Settling on an itinerary was a challenging task, so I hope that including ours will help you in your future journeys to Utah. More photos of our trip soon!

Day One

Flew into St. George (coming from another direction, you may end up in Vegas). Rental car and Wal-Mart for supplies.

Zion National Park. You can bypass the park (and its fees) but the drive through the park is really something. We stopped in for a bit and did the common shuttle stops.

Checked into the Bullberry Inn B&B. We really enjoyed our stay with Bella (the dog) and her family.

Visitor Center for flood warnings (rained overnight and this afternoon)

Notom-Bullfrog Road to Red Canyon trail

Went back very wet, but great hike.

Day Seven

More rain overnight ruined our plans for slot canyons, but chased us to Arches National Park. Great day trip. If you’re in moderately good shape, don’t let the park publication scare you away from the arch trails. We saw a ton of arches in one day and only had to skip the strenuous hikes.

I made good use of my camera zoom – especially with the baby rattlesnake! Please use caution when photographing wild animals. If they have been habituated to people, they are even more dangerous… (PSA over).